grape, I think I said this already, but Back in the day in the schools booth
I used centari with the performance pack, blue metallic.
It was the car I learned to spray single metallics with. It has a gloss hardener to make it more like a urethane. It layed out very nice, good thing, a metallic you can't buff as mentioned in this thread many times, and didn't need any retarder. It sure is nice when you have a good booth to paint in and near perfect conditions and lighting. I have no idea what the life was on it, my mom smashed the car a few months after. Wish I had pics here, I'll try to dig some up next time I am at my moms. I know she has some after the wreck though. Pretty sad seeing a nice glossy car that was recently painted with all the panels ruined. She was pretty crippled up for awhile after that, fell asleep when she was just about home. Also sprayed a bit of sikkens autocryl back then, and this also looked pretty nice. Shouldn't necessarily need to add a retarder. You shouldn't need a retarder unless you have high temps, It should slow things down a bit and give more flow time, but with good gun adjustment and technique, I don't think you would need one. I sometimes will over reduce just a little on the last coat, but don't go nuts. I don't know about buffing blue in single stage, strange that it would cause more problems. I have been racking my brains, but can't remember ever painting a blue in singles stage, not one that was buffed. What brand enamel do you have. Are you sure 10 min isn't the minimum flash time between coats. I never seen a paint with a window of only 10 minutes between coats.

The paint is OMNI (Cheaper PPG Line) Acryllic Enamel with a medium reducer, hardener and 70' dry heat (wood heat). I got it to lay almost perfect but has slight orange peel to the point where I feel like I should cut and buff. I think I'm going to sand and see what happens just to satisfy my curiosity. If it don't work I'll just give it one more quick coat.The dry time on the tech sheet says:

Between Coats: 5-10 minutes@ 70'F

Air dry: Dust: 30 minutes
Tack: 1-2 hours
Tape: 4 hours
Dry: 16 hours @ 70'F
At the bottom of the dry times category it says "IR 10-15 MINUTES. What is "IR" How long should I wait on enamel before sanding? 3-4 days??

Force dry time under infrared I believe. I'd wait at least a day or so if it is activated. Without an activator probably longer, and don't think I would try buffing without an activator. Haven't used it in awhile so don't really remember. I have used omni ss before and know I waited longer between coats then 10 min. It still looks about the same as when it was painted over 4 years ago, no loss of adhesion, other then rust that is coming back through it still looks nice. The omni I used was MOU.

i have painted acrylic enamel since the early 70's. i sit down the other day and counted over 45 cars that i painted.
i would give the car 2 to 3 color coats, and then hit it with a wet coat with retarder added, untill i would get a glass finish.
i would wait between coats , touch the paper for tack, and then go around with a tack rag and gently remove any thing that would hurt the finish.
i always used hardner in the paint. i always painted in the early morning hours in the summer days, dew on the ground outside, and the bugs were still not out.
i wouldn't paint in the winters, i had an open shop, and always used drop clothes for a booth, to section off my paint area.

Yeah I waited 20 min. between final 2 coats. Does waiting longer between coats necessarily mean the next coat could be heavier for better flow? My tech sheet says to add 10 percent retarder to RTS quart, what's "RTS". Do I add 10 percent retarder to what my mix is?? That glass finish is what I'm after, one of these times I'm going to get it I am under the assumption that with retarder I can spray a heavier flow coat or not??? I'm going to post a pic of how my hood turned out. I just painted the hood but when I paint the rest of the truck I'm going to do it one fender and door at a time so I can pratice with the retarder. It might not all match but it's just a guinee pig,,,,,er i mean,,,,work truck

When I use retarder I use a lot less thinner.
I don't want a thinner paint, I want a wetter paint.
With adding more thinner you get less coverage and it runs easier,
Especially when you're trying to cover.
With retarder, you can substitute the retarder for most of the thinner
and still spray it "full bodied", not over thinned so you don't get the runs.
With retarder the paint will stay wet and flow out so you actually
spray a lighter coat and it will all melt together.
again, to me it's like spraying oil, keeping thicker than over thinned paint
and leveling out.
I use way more retarder than recommended, but it works for me.
I use so much that I just mist on the last coat, spraying half the usual
amount of paint and increasing my distance back when spraying.
The control is unbelievable, probably not the recommended way but a friend
of mine did the side of a school bus this way and kept the entire side wet
before he finished spraying, it looked great.

No, a retarder and reducer are two different things.
And labeled accordingly.
A retarder for enamel is different that one for urethane.
The retarder I use is a universal one for lacquer and enamel but
not anything else. I also have one for urethane clear that I got
from my jobber. The painters use it a lot when the temps are way
up there, like upper 90's.
I haven't used it enough to have an opinion on it yet.

a beginner may want to use a viscometer in reducing their paint. a viscometer is a small handle cup with a hole in the bottom. after adding thinner to your paint, you submerge the cup in the paint and time how many seconds it takes the paint to run out of the cup. when you later add retarder to the mixed paint on your finish coats, the time should not be more than 3 seconds less than when you did the first coat. after a few paint jobs , you may not have to rely on the viscometer. you can get one at your local jobber or at sears. that is how i taught my younger brother, when he first started painting.

Yes, the viscosity of the paint is important. One of the typical gadgets
to measure it is called a "Ford cup" Or "zahn cup" (I think).
This is an issue that has been discussed at great length here before.
Most agree as long as you mix according to the mfg instructions you
will have it right. That is why I said I use retarder in place of some of the
reducer. The final mix is the same reduction rate, or viscosity.
If anything, when using retarder I mix it a little thicker, not thinner.

Example: If 16 oz of paint calls for 4 oz of reducer, I'll mix 16 oz of
paint with 2 oz reducer and 2 oz retarder for the last coat.
But the overall mix is the same reduction, or pretty close.
You don't want to over reduce your paint with retarder.

I sprayed a lot of Centari back in the late '80s and thru the '90s, and never had a problem with the finish and flow out. I always used overal gloss hardner (793 if memory serves) and never had to buff or colorsand. The only problem would be with your reds, because they would start fading in a couple of years if out in the sun much.

I still occasionaly use Centari, mostly for quick jobs on older vehicles that I refurbish for resale. I've found that there is money in older (10 years or so) cars geared towards school kids or poorer familys. If you can buy them right, do a quility but low cost job and have a product that is clean and looks good you'll come out alright and also make the customer happy.

My paint of choice is Dupont Chroma System, and use this exclusivly on customer jobs in the shop. If your doing collision work BC/CC is the way to go because it's the same as what comes from the factory and it's easy to blend panels when you get to spray clear over the whole blended panel.

As for doing jobs too cheaply, I would suggest getting a tax number so you can bid on insurance jobs, and also getting a subscription to something like "Mitchells" which will give you industry standard times for repairs, and follow the times. I charge $45 hr on Insurance jobs, and in a lot of cases will waive the customers deductable if the numbers add up. This makes the customer feel like the repair is free because nothing comes out of his pocket, and I come out good because my shop is on my acreage and my overhead is low. If you get a tax number and start doing insurance jobs be prepared to deal with a few A-Hole ajusters. I had one a while back from GMAC and decided I will not do jobs insured by them again unless the customer knows up front that if their insurer jacks me they will make up the differance.

I sprayed a lot of Centari back in the late '80s and thru the '90s, and never had a problem with the finish and flow out. I always used overal gloss hardner (793 if memory serves) and never had to buff or colorsand. The only problem would be with your reds, because they would start fading in a couple of years if out in the sun much.

I still occasionaly use Centari, mostly for quick jobs on older vehicles that I refurbish for resale. I've found that there is money in older (10 years or so) cars geared towards school kids or poorer familys. If you can buy them right, do a quility but low cost job and have a product that is clean and looks good you'll come out alright and also make the customer happy.

My paint of choice is Dupont Chroma System, and use this exclusivly on customer jobs in the shop. If your doing collision work BC/CC is the way to go because it's the same as what comes from the factory and it's easy to blend panels when you get to spray clear over the whole blended panel.

As for doing jobs too cheaply, I would suggest getting a tax number so you can bid on insurance jobs, and also getting a subscription to something like "Mitchells" which will give you industry standard times for repairs, and follow the times. I charge $45 hr on Insurance jobs, and in a lot of cases will waive the customers deductable if the numbers add up. This makes the customer feel like the repair is free because nothing comes out of his pocket, and I come out good because my shop is on my acreage and my overhead is low. If you get a tax number and start doing insurance jobs be prepared to deal with a few A-Hole ajusters. I had one a while back from GMAC and decided I will not do jobs insured by them again unless the customer knows up front that if their insurer jacks me they will make up the differance.

Can you guys just like tell me what training i need so i can get off of this stupid site and get back to school?

You're new so I'll offer some good advice. This forum is for discussions of paint and bodywork related subjects. If you have nothing worthwhile to add to the conversation please don't post garbage and waste people's time.

On second thought, I bet the people at the Washington School Information Processing Cooperative would like to know exactly what you've been doing with the school's computer.

RTS= ready to spray. Basically paint that is already reduced and the right viscosity. So I take that is you would measure out your paint, reducer and hardener in the right ratios, and then you can add up to 1 tenth (10%) of that amount of retarder. So say your total mixed up paint comes to 32 oz which equals a quart, then add up to 3.2 oz of retarder or just move your decimal 32.0 oz over one place for 10 percent, or times 32 x.10= 3.2. Just a little math lesson, not only do you have to play chemist, you have to understand math in this business also.

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